The innovation of prepaid phone cards for mobile phones has allowed previously impermissible patterns of mobile phone use. Prepaid phone cards allow mobile phone customers to exchange cash for mobile phone time, thereby permitting a number of previously unavailable mobile phone usage patterns. For instance, customers who are considered a credit risk (such as international travelers or individuals with a poor credit history) and would otherwise be denied mobile phone service by a mobile phone operator are able to secure service from a mobile phone operator by paying for the usage time in advance. Similarly, classes of individuals such as children may have their mobile phone time limited through prepaid phone card time limits that set ceilings on mobile phone use and spending. Thus, mobile phone operators benefit by securing additional customers that would otherwise be rejected as a credit risk, and customers themselves also benefit because they are able to set limits on their calling time and calling costs.
In order to utilize prepaid phone cards for mobile phones, customers must periodically “refill” their prepaid phone cards to keep their available time from expiring. Customers may refill their prepaid phone cards by entering a refill code, which adds additional time to their prepaid phone card and thereby raises the usage limit for the mobile phone. Refill codes are traditionally purchased from retailers or operators who sell refill codes to customers. A number of significant problems exist with these prior art methods for the purchase of refill codes by customers from operators and retailers.
First, retailers and operators typically sell refill codes in “hard copy” or paper forms, wherein the customer provides payment in exchange for a preprinted refill code. Such a refill code is equivalent to its cash value, however, and thus susceptible to theft from operators and retailers in their hard copy form. Thus, one significant problem is the theft of refill codes from retailers and operators in order to resell stolen refill codes to customers. This problem is difficult to avoid, because retailers and operators are forced to carry an inventory of hard copy refill codes to sell to customers for use in the traditional customer refill code purchase methods.
Second, in exchange for a reduced customer credit risk, operators must endure a loss of customer control and marketing power that stems from the customers' ability to utilize any mobile phone operator to refill their phone card. In other words, customers are free to pick and choose any mobile phone operator whenever they refill their prepaid phone card by purchasing a refill code from any available operator, provided that the customer has purchased the necessary starter kits from each operator. These starter kits are of low cost and have little effect on customer loyalty. The original operator may never know which operator a former customer has switched to or the reason for the switch. Thus, unlike mobile phone customers that do not use prepaid phone cards and thereby remain tied to a particular operator, those mobile phone customers that do use prepaid phone cards are free to change operators every time they refill their prepaid phone cards. This is undesirable for operators, who at a minimum seek to track the usage patterns of mobile phone customers, and usually seek to retain their current customers while attracting new customers.
Third, customers themselves lose the benefits of simplicity and convenience due to the cumbersome process associated with refilling a mobile phone card using traditional methods. Each time their prepaid phone card must be refilled, the customer must seek out a retailer or operator and purchase a hard copy of a mobile terminal refill code. The refill code may have been fraudulently obtained or stolen and then resold, however, and may thus be useless to the mobile customer. The customer also has no convenient way to receive the potential benefits from a single operator that would otherwise be granted to a new or long-term customer, such as rebates and special discounts. This is so because the operators cannot track which customers purchase their refill codes, and thus cannot provide specific, customer-based incentives and benefits for customers to purchase their refill codes. Thus, customers are also deprived of financial benefits because of traditional methods of purchasing refill codes.
These and other deficiencies in the traditional methods for purchasing, tracking and distributing the refill codes for prepaid phone cards for mobile phones are addressed by the present invention.